Palin rips China in India talk

She criticizes Beijing's military buildup.

NEW DELHI -- On her first trip to India, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she is still thinking about running for president, and voiced concerns about China's military rise.

Speaking to a hand-picked, elite audience of Indian business tycoons, lawmakers, Bollywood stars, lobbyists and socialites at a packed media conference, Palin deftly handled the question on everyone's minds: whether she would throw her hat in the ring in 2012.

"I am thinking about it," said Palin, who fielded at least three questions on the subject. "I don't think there needs to be a rush. ... I want to find out who else is going to put their name forward in service."

But Palin was not so cautious when she spoke of China and surprised everybody by her unexpected candor about India's neighbor to the north.

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In fact, she encouraged her questioner to ask her about China.

"I personally have huge military concerns about what is going on in China," she said. "What's with the buildup? You don't see a tangible outside threat ... to that country. Is that just for a defensive posture? How can that be? Stockpiling ballistic missiles, submarines, new-age ultramodern fighter aircraft. It certainly means America needs to be vigilant looking at what China is doing."

Palin, who flew to New Delhi from Taiwan, added that America's economic reliance on China constituted "a dangerous place to be."

Palin's speech, titled "My Vision of America," was the gala event at the end of a two-day conference organized by an Indian weekly magazine. Other international speakers included the feminist writer Germaine Greer, hacker Josh Klein, Pakistani politician Aitzaz Ahsan, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei.

"I am surprised at her openness when speaking about the Chinese threat, especially when she is on Indian soil," said Kanwal Sibal, a former diplomat and a foreign policy columnist. "China will not fail to notice this."

Palin's two-day trip to India came about five months after President Barack Obama's state visit.

After Palin finished her speech, she sat down to answer a host of questions to laughter, cheers and applause from the audience.

Palin criticized the emphasis on green jobs as a "false, utopian fairy tale," said it is not necessary to put troops on the ground in Libya, advocated more decisiveness on American foreign policy, and compared Mahatma Gandhi's agitation against the salt tax to the American movement against the British tea tax.